I agree on the revisionists!

While under the name of manioc starch this is likely hard to find in the U.S. or other northern spots, look for it as tapioca starch – it’s a common enough ingredient in puddings and such that it should be available in a good number of spots, certainly in a typical natural foods store, if not in many grocery stores, and is also a common ingredient in Chinese cooking if you live near a chinatown. If not, I’m not sure what to recommend – I haven’t experimented using other types of starches like potato or sweet potato, but my guess is they won’t work as well, tapioca has that natural “glue-i-ness” that I think this needs in order to work.

Manioc starch is not such a common ingredient in el Norte… Are there alternatives you’d suggest? Or from your days as NY-er, do you know where I can find it?

Of course Maria, and I even mentioned that – so what’s your point? Virtually every country that was a colony of English, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch occupation had the same occur. It was the way things were in the period of European empires from the 1500s on through the 1800s, often, as here and in the U.S., continuing after the colonial period had ended. Then again, it’s not all that different from going back further and looking at Roman, Greek, Ottoman, various African, even Incan occupations.

Fair enough, and of course history is always open to interpretation. I do know that there are those on both sides of the issue as to whether those campaigns were intentional genocide or had other purposes that resulted in major casualties (on both sides of the equation, no doubt). Given what I’ve read, I have to admit to leaning towards what you consider revisionism, and feel that the other point of view is the revisionist one, but that’s the way politics and history generally are – none of us was there and can only rely on our own interpretations of others’ interpretations. And, like my own country, much of what happened, happened prior to modern times, during the colonial era, and culpability can be laid at the feet of the Spanish armada of that time period, which doesn’t negate events that happened after, nor any other injustices, nor, in the same way, what has been done in the way of reparations, intermingling, etc. I don’t mind the discussion on the blog, though I suppose it’s odd that it was triggered by a bread recipe (then again, recipes and food are often at the heart of conflicts).